Complaint Review: Last Chance Garage

September 20th 2005 I left my 1999 Chevy Blazer off at Last Chance Garage, at 8am to get a new heater core installed. I called around 3:30pm and they said it was all done. I picked it up around 4pm. It was done sooner than I expected because Mike Kellner said that the job was supposed to take 10.5 hours. It was only there 7 minus 1 hour for lunch. They charged me $760.80. On the bill it states on the invoice that there was 10 hours labor, but that wasn't true. They only had the car for 8 hours at the most.

Less than a month later the heater stopped working.
October 10th, not getting much heat sometimes if it's warm outside, I do get heat, but if it's cold outside, not much heat at all Oct 15th, no heat at all only cold air is blowing.

I took my vehicle to "Grey Chevrolet" in Port Orchard, and they inspected the heater core. They provided me with a written document on their official letterhead that documented their inspection and their opinion that the heater core that is currently installed in my car was not new (a month old).

The fact is, that the repair manager at Grey Chevrolet who examined my Blazer and told me that what he saw in my car did not look like a new heater core because the piping coming out of the firewall was not new and shiny, but dull and dusty and there was a lot of build up of dust and dirt around the pipes & on the firewall and that dust and dirt was not disturbed at all. In fact, he pointed out the clamps on the hoses had never been moved and if they were new clamps or adapters the hoses would have marks on them and they didn't. The hoses looked dusty and completely undisturbed. The manager also confirmed that the job could not be done in less than 10 hours. (Requiring a 2 day stay) Grey Chevrolet had replaced my heater core in May 2003.

When I talked to Mike Kellner, he said he did replace it and said he had a receipt to prove it. I took a look at the receipt Mike had from West Bay Auto Parts in Belfair for a heater core dated 9/20/05. It's my opinion that the receipt Mike showed me, proves nothing except that Mike bought a heater core on 9/20/05. It doesn't mean he put it in my vehicle. My friend told me that he talked to a friend of his that works at WBAP and he looked it up on the computer and saw the Mike returned the same heater core that he bought that morning, a couple of weeks later. In fact, the computers show a large number of different heater cores Mike Kellner bought and all were returned except one.

West Bay Auto Parts I'm sure all transactions are recorded in their computer. Their address and phone number is as follows;

West Bay Auto Parts
NE 24230 St. Rt. 3
Belfair, Wa 98528
360) 275-9000

I gave Mike Kellner a chance to fix it and all he did was flush out the old heater core, and filled it with dirty, rusty water. I have kept samples of the dirty rusty water that LCG put into my vehicle after I complained the car over heated, and the heater core still wasn't working. There was no coolant in it when they returned the car to me.

Less three days later, all the water drained out of my car and it over heated. Mike said all of my hoses were rotten... I suspect he damaged my hose. He wanted to replace them all and blamed the hosed for the heater core not working. I told him no.

Mike has put unstamped envelopes in my mail box twice now and I believe that is against Federal Law and he tresspassed to do it. He has also billed me for work that I never authorized and turned it into a collection agency.

I also asked Mike Kellner, point blank, how they could do it in less than 10 hours and he said that he helped Troy do it. I'm sure L&I would be interested in that statement.

A violation of the auto repair law is also a violation of the Consumer Protection Act. This means the consumer can recover up to three times the amount of damages (up to $10,000) in a successful court action. Under the law (RCW 46.71) the following specific actions are unfair and misleading:

Retaining payment from a customer for parts not delivered or installed, or a repair procedure not performed.

Laureen
Belfair, Washington
U.S.A.